Full Scale Prototyping of Home Base

Just a few quick pictures from yesterday's work session.

I'm making a full scale prototype with the final materials and it's coming along nicely. The metal is working great, I ended up going with at 3" wide curve in the metal to hold the mail. 2" was just to skinny for large packages or when the Sunday paper comes.

The prototype is painted matte black and I'm actually enamored with the color. I was planning on powder coating all of the pieces, but I may stick with the flat black on one of them. I does take fingerprints quite easily and I'm a bit worried about scratching the paint. The powder coat will be much more durable, a matte black powder coat may be in the works.

The unpainted metal forms waiting to go to powder with the painted metal prototype.

Tomorrow I'll be routing out the new wood pieces (a bit wider than the originals) and we will see how well the meld with the metal.

Thanks for reading.

Paint Testing

Today for Home Base I started cutting out the metal. So far so good, simple straight cuts for the metal. I bought 18 gauge steel yesterday, not to thick, not to thin, but thick enough to hold it's own weight up.

Next up is bending the U bend on the rollers, luckily we have a small sheet bender with a 2 1/4" diameter. Perfect for the bend I'm looking to create.

I'm also doing some painting tests with some spray paints I have left over from the clock. Flat black, gloss black and flat white. I'm planning on powder coating the metal, but I wanted to test just in case the powder coating ends up being to expensive or takes to long. Deadlines and budgets after all.

I'm still not sure what colors to try, partly I wanted to see a white and black on the steel. I'm thinking painting one black (just need to decided gloss or flat), another flat white, and then a different color. I'm thinking a flat secondary color (maybe a yellow or cyan). Really something to throw some color on the wall.

Testing, Testing.

Thanks for reading.